


Translation and Interpretation

by viklikesfic (v_angelique)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-27
Updated: 2007-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v_angelique/pseuds/viklikesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>822 words inspired by my being a linguistic geek.  Set at the time of the Berlin ROTK premiere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Translation and Interpretation

Viggo watches, silently, from the corner of the hotel suite's large living room, as Dom interprets. The English football match is being broadcast in Berlin, but the announcers are German, and so Sean and Orlando and Billy all listen intently as Dom rattles off the play-by-play as quickly as he can, missing words and sometimes stumbling, his voice an odd monotone devoid of its usual enthusiastic inflections as he tries to listen and speak at the same time. The other men don't notice—Leeds is playing Sheffield United, and so they only care about the match—but Viggo pays attention to the way Dom interprets, hesitant at first but then gaining in momentum, becoming more word-for-word as the match goes on. He is relearning the language as he speaks, and it is fascinating to watch.

After the match, the lads disperse with beer and crisps and those amazing Milka bars that Liv purchased a bag of at the airport on a whim. Dom starts to follow Orlando and Billy back to Elijah's room, but pauses at the last moment and turns instead to Viggo, whose suite it actually is, and peers over his shoulder at the book and the legal pad next to it, full of illegible scrawl.

"Wotcher doin?" Dom asks, cracking open the last can of beer. He hadn't been drinking at all during the match, because he needed his brainpower to get through. Designated interpreter, he thinks with a barely-suppressed giggle.

"Translating poetry," Viggo replies, looking up with an easy smile. He holds a hand out, and Dom passes the can, watches Viggo's throat muscles work as he takes a large sip and then returns the beer. They both prefer the dark German stouts, but it was Elijah's turn to buy tonight and so they'll manage.

"From Spanish?" Dom asks, resting one hand on Viggo's shoulder, eyeing the unfamiliar lines of printed page more critically.

Viggo nods. "You're getting better at that," he notes, nodding towards the television. Dom laughs self-consciously.

"Over the course of an evening?" He smirks. "I never was much for translation."

Viggo smiles and shakes his head. "That's interpretation. Completely different animal."

Dom cocks his head to the side and licks his lips. "Come again?"

"Interpretation," Viggo explains patiently, leaning back on two legs of his chair and hooking his ankles around the sturdy wooden table to anchor himself so that Dom doesn't have to, "is a completely different process. It revolves around accuracy. Word-for-word, real-time interpretation of speech."

"And translation doesn't?" Dom asks, furrowing his brow.

"In a way," Viggo concedes, nodding his head as he considers the lines he's already written out, tracing over the pale yellow page with his graphite-stained index finger. "It's more of an artistic accuracy. Accuracy of intent."

Dom bites his lip and sets his beer down so that he can dig his fingers into the muscles of Viggo's shoulders, massaging as he replies. "If it isn't a direct translation, though, doesn't that make _you_ the artist? You're just another lens."

Viggo beams, though Dom can't see it. "Exactly."

Dom feels like a schoolchild who has gotten the answer right, and feels inordinately pleased. "Well, that's what it comes down to, right?" he points out with a self-deprecating grin to the fading wallpaper. "You're the artist, and I'm just a conduit."

Viggo frowns and sets all four legs of the chair back on the floor again, drawing Dom's hands away from his shoulders with the movement. He turns and stands, placing himself unnaturally close—unnaturally for anyone else, at least, but this is Viggo. He reaches up slowly to Dom's face, his hands parallel, pausing in the air an inch from Dom's cheeks before he presses them to stubbled skin. "You're a conduit for so much more than you realise," he says gently, his expression worried, and Dom suddenly sees something he's never noticed in Viggo's eyes. Something intimate, and personal, a light that he is strangely possessive of—he wants this to be _his_, and no one else's. Dom can be selfish sometimes.

He tries to formulate a reply but he can't, and so he communicates in the only way he can right now. He leans forward, feeling the slight resistance in Viggo's hands but forging past it, tilting his chin up until their lips connect. It takes Viggo a moment, but then he responds more fervently, with more passion than Dom ever expected. His hands slide down, down Dom's chest and around his waist until they are connected at every possible point, careening backwards into the wall. Dom feels triumphant and joyful. He feels the ultimate success of the interpreter—the knowledge that his message has been communicated. Viggo reflects, reworks, sculpts and bends. He translates Dom's desire into a new thing, into a mirror of his own. When they come together, when Dom is finally sweaty and naked and arching in Viggo's bed, there is no question—it is art.


End file.
